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NBR Analysis vol. 4, no. 1

Memoranda to Policymakers

June 1, 1993

President Clinton and members of Congress face new as well as enduring challenges to American interests in Asia. This issue of NBR Analysis addresses many of the key issues in the region from the perspectives of one of the national’s leading economists, Professor Jeffrey Frankel of the University of California-Berkeley, and Douglas Paal, President of the Asia Pacific Policy Center and recently President Bush’s chief Asia advisor on the National Security Council.

In his wide-ranging memorandum to policymakers, Professor Frankel offers answers to major questions about American policy in Asia and about imagined versus actual developments in the region. He asks if U.S. international economic goals have changed and revisits the question of a Yen bloc forming in East Asia. He asks what ought to be done about U.S. relations with Vietnam, and how the United States ought to respond to human rights abuses in China. He assesses the bursting of the “bubble economy” in Japan, and recommends U.S. policy for dealing with the impasse in Japanese-Russian relations.

Douglas Paal applies his vast experience in Asia to a strategic look forward. On the basis of a series of explicit assumptions about Asia’s future he examines border issues, arms export policies, human rights, Taiwan, trade, and other likely policy flashpoints in Sino-U.S. relations. Perhaps no American is in a better position to discuss these issues than Douglas Paal.

Both articles were prepared for the third annual Workshop on Asian Politics, which was sponsored by the Defense Intelligence College and NBR and held March 18-19, 1993, in Monterey, California. Additional papers from the workshop authored by leading specialists on East Asia, will be published shortly in the next two issues of NBR Analysis.